Ripped At Every Edge (But We're A Masterpiece)
by luverofjamesandlily
Summary: A series of drabbles about Gus and Rusty (at the moment). Will probably include appearances from members of the team! Title from Halsey's song Colors.
1. Lunch Notes

The view from Rusty's classroom window looked wonderful. And he was stuck inside listening to his professor drone on about bacterial growth. Rusty could appreciate science—half of his mom's cases would still be unsolved without DNA and all that—but that didn't mean _he_ wanted to learn about it. And journalists didn't need to know about this stuff, they just interviewed the people who did.

The professor moved from where he'd been leaning against the wall and Rusty jerked guiltily, pulling his notebook towards him and jotting down the last few things the professor said before releasing them from the mind-numbing class.

He had about an hour to kill before his next class started, one that he actually enjoyed—investigative writing. He found himself walking towards an empty courtyard table, but wasn't alone for long. Sara, a girl he'd had a couple of classes with, joined him. He wasn't the best at making friends, after everything that had happened in his life, but she was hard to say no to. She constantly was smiling and chattering about anything really, but if he ever had something to say, she'd listen too.

"How're you today?" she asked, slinging her bag to the ground before rifling through it for her lunch.

"I'm good," he replied, following suit and taking his own lunch out. He wasn't quite sure what was in it. Gus had made him something the night before to try out some new cooking technique he wanted to impress his boss with. "How are you?" he finally remembered to ask in return. She smiled at him before shrugging.

"Ready for this day to be over," she said with a sigh.

"I agree with that," Rusty said, already thinking of his plans after his next class. He was heading over to the station to talk to Buzz about the case. Then he was going to pick Gus up from work and stay over for the evening.

Rusty opened his paper lunch bag and peered into it curiously. It looked like some kind of baked chicken with a glaze. He opened the Tupperware, stuck his finger in it and tried a taste. He grinned. Honey maybe, but something sweet at least. Sara raised an eyebrow at him.

"Did you forget what you packed?" she asked.

"My boyfriend made it for me, I didn't know what it was," he defended himself as he dumped the rest of the bag out onto the table. Everything else seemed pretty normal, strawberries, cucumbers, and a roll. He frowned as he saw a bright pink post-it note stuck to the bottom of the strawberry container. He flipped it over and froze at the three little words scrawled across it— _I love you._

Sara craned her neck to look over at the words and smiled at his reaction.

"Still in the lovey dovey phase?" she asked as she reached over and stole a strawberry from him.

"Well, um. We—well…" he stumbled over his words. "We just said it a couple days ago for the, um, first time," he explained. He could feel his ears turning red, but Sara just nodded and chomped on one of her carrots.

"That's really adorable," was all she said before bringing up a professor and how unreasonable his expectations were. He listened with one ear as he pulled his phone out and brought up Gus's name. He only hesitated for a second before typing out "I love you too" and pressing send. He knew Gus wouldn't answer, since they weren't allowed to text at the restaurant, but he hoped Gus would at least be able to look at it. That little pink slip of paper found its way into his planner, carefully tucked into one of the back pages.


	2. Cookies

The kitchen was already a mess, messier than Rusty had ever seen it. He hoped his mom wouldn't come home before he had a chance to clean it, considering he wasn't even quite sure how a streak of flour made it across the uppermost cabinet or the cloud of baking soda that had landed in the middle of the rug. And Gus was not helping matters either, he thought as he glared at his boyfriend.

"You are going to make me spill the bowl," he accused as he cradled the bowl against his stomach.

"You wouldn't spill it if you stopped jerking it away from me," Gus replied, his tone amused and happy.

"Well, there needs to be some cookie dough to bake. We promised everyone Mom would bring cookies tomorrow," he said, trying to stand firm, but it was rather difficult when confronted with Gus's eyes and face… and entire being.

"We already have a tray in the oven, it can't hurt to eat a little of the dough now," Gus said, trying to persuade Rusty.

"Do you know how much they all eat? One tray would probably be enough for Julio and Mike," Rusty retorted.

Rusty decided he needed to start making some executive decisions, otherwise nothing would get done.

"You need to go stand over there," he said, gesturing vaguely to the other corner of the kitchen, away from the countertop he was using to mix the dough. Gus raised an eyebrow at him.

"Seriously? You're going to start giving orders in the kitchen? This is one of the only places I have control of," he said, but Rusty could tell he wasn't being completely serious.

"When you make poor decisions, someone else has to take control," Rusty said, a smile tugging on the corners of his lips, which Gus noticed immediately.

"Well, I happen to think any decision that makes you smile like that can't be a poor one," he said with a shrug. Rusty grinned, looking down at the counter because sometimes looking at Gus when he felt this happy was difficult for him. But Gus didn't let him get away with it, his fingers tucked themselves under Rusty's chin and tugged upwards gently. With a little resistance, because Rusty couldn't let anything go easily, he let Gus raise his gaze up again. While there hadn't been much space between them to begin with, which was where their whole problem had started, Gus shortened the distance even more and tilted his head to bring their lips together. Rusty felt some tension melt out of his body at the familiar touch and tried to bring his hand up to rest on Gus's shoulder, but was blocked by something firm. His eyes flew open to witness Gus trying to take a handful of cookie dough.

"I can't believe you," he said sourly, but he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Gus's eyes widened with fake innocence.

"My hand slipped," he offered.

"Nice try," Rusty said, shaking his head. "And honestly, I'm a little disappointed that that lie sucked as bad as it did."

"I just really wanted some more cookie dough," Gus confessed, with absolutely no shame.

"Do you really not care about raw egg? Or even raw flour? Apparently you aren't supposed to eat raw flour anymore," Rusty said.

"The actual chance of getting salmonella from raw egg is incredibly low," he said, scoffing. "And even if I did, it would have been for a good reason."

"You're ridiculous." Rusty looked at Gus for a minute before gesturing to the corner of the kitchen again. "Go sit on the counter over there or something. The sooner we get the cookies done, the sooner we can do other stuff," he said, trying to sound convincing.

"And when you say other stuff…" Gus said slowly.

"I mean I need to edit my notes about Buzz's case," Rusty said with grin at Gus's deflated expression. "But I don't need to finish those for tomorrow, so there might be some wiggle room for other activities," he added. Without another word, Gus walked to the corner of the kitchen and hopped onto the counter, leaning back on his hands. Rusty shook his head to refocus on the task at hand and, unsurprisingly, was able to get two more trays of cookies done without Gus's distracting stealing. He could feel Gus's gaze on him as he worked, focused but not intense. It felt strange to know someone cared about him for who he was, not what he could give them or be paid to give him. They both chose to be in this relationship and there was something so incredibly freeing about knowing he could chose to leave, if he wanted which he completely did not want.

"What're you thinking about?" Gus asked softly as Rusty stuck the last sheet of cookies into the oven and closed the door with a bang. Rusty shrugged, but tried to compose his thoughts into coherent words for him. Gus understood and was quiet, waiting for Rusty to speak.

"I'm just glad you were persistent when you first moved here," he finally spoke. "Because I guess you aren't awful to be around," he added, to make things less sentimental.

"'Aren't awful'? A step up from annoying, I guess," Gus replied, a smile playing on his mouth.

Rusty nodded, "You're moving up in the world, for sure." He looked down at the almost empty bowl of cookie dough and carried it over to where Gus was still sitting on the counter. "Here," he added, handing the bowl over without any other words. Gus's face lit up.

"I knew you cared about me," he said, taking the bowl from Rusty quickly, almost as if he expected Rusty to change his mind and take it back.

"I know I'm new to relationships and all that, but I'm pretty sure that's the reason people date," he quipped, before nudging Gus's leg playfully. He let his hand linger on his lower thigh, though, appreciating how stable and comforting Gus always was.

"I suppose so," he agreed before scooping some cookie dough onto his fingers and offering it to Rusty.

"I assume this is supposed to be a nice gesture, since you're so weird about cookie dough, but you literally just listened to me list off why raw cookie dough is bad for you. I think I'll pass," Rusty said firmly, but he squeezed Gus's leg in apology.

"That was the most heartfelt declaration you're ever going to get from me," Gus said with a shrug before smiling gently down at Rusty.


End file.
